Florida Linkorama

Now with sub-tropical Add On.

No, these are not Ub Iwerks' old roughs.

A monster thunderstorm rattled and boomed through Diz World a little while ago; a good time to huddle in the hotel room and throw a festival of links.

Chris Meladandri, late of Fox-Blue Sky Animation, is teeing up a second animated feature for Universal (Despicable Me being the first):

“Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” will be co-directed by Chris Renaud and Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio, with Paul & Daurio writing the script

A breathless article about the 3-D version of the Mouse's oncoming Beauty and the Beast reveals the secrets! ...

Creating a Disney Digital 3-D version of "Beauty and the Beast," ... will be handled entirely in-house at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and will utilize innovative proprietary software, along with the latest techniques and advances in 3-D technology. Overseeing the project from the creative end will be the film's original team of acclaimed filmmakers

Kind of true. Except that the work has been ongoing for the better part of a year.  The 3-D (what I've seen of it) looks pretty good.

And DreamWorks Animation is still ... according to the New York Times ... is still puzzling out the reasons for Monsters Vs. Aliens foreign underperformance. (But didn't we answer this question already?):

(And it didn't stop the company from doing pretty well on Wall Street ...)

... Mr. Katzenberg had hoped the movie would spawn the company’s fourth franchise behind “Shrek,” “Madagascar” and “Kung-Fu Panda.” But the movie’s soft performance in certain overseas markets (like Germany and France) has given the studio pause. Some international markets were “very big misses for the film and we don’t fully understand why,” he said. Will there be a sequel? “We don’t have all the information in hand to come to that decision,” he said ...

Science Magazine profiles a French exhibit on the prehistory of cartoons ... back around half a kazillion years ago:

... [A] special exhibit in the south of France claims that the origins of the cartoon can be traced back much further, to the earliest known cave art more than 30,000 years ago. The exhibit, at the prehistory center of the Pech-Merle Cave in the Lot Valley, is titled “Préhistoire de la Bande Dessinée et du Dessin Animé” ("Prehistory of the Cartoon Strip and the Motion Picture Cartoon"). It was mounted by prehistorian and filmmaker Marc Azéma of the University of Toulouse in France. Azéma argues in nearly 30 beautifully illustrated panels that early cave artists used some of the same animation techniques that cartoonists use today ...

(Truth to tell, this was touched on in an old Disneyland episode from the 1950s.)

Variety projects that Up will soon be going like gangbusters in foreign lands:

Two months after its domestic launch, Disney's finally launching "Up" in several major overseas markets this weekend including France, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan with an additional 1,200 locations. Demand's likely to be particularly strong in France, where the Pixar toon received an enthusiastic response at Cannes ...

Lastly, top-drawer story artist Ed Gombert blogs about top-drawer story artist Vance Gerry. Ed has already had everybody and his brother link to his tribute, so I'm being redundant here, but since I worked with Vance and knew him to be one of the world's great human beings, I also link up. (Call me a sheep, I don't care.)

Mr. Gerry (on right) with unidentified geek -- circa 1982.

Add On: Diz Co. releases some good-looking development art (which I've seen tacked up around the hat building) on Rapunzel

And it's going to need some good-looking .. and profitable films to overcome its lacklustre new earnings report.

Walt Disney Co., the world’s biggest media company, said third-quarter profit fell 26 percent as the recession cut advertising and theme-park sales. The film studio registered a loss ...

... The film studio registered a loss of $12 million, compared with a profit of $97 million a year ago. ...

So it's kind of important to produce those animated features, yes?

Have yourself a weekend you can be proud of.